Sony's New Batteries Have 4 Times the Power

We know that people would like to live without having to use batteries, but they are still necessary to power your gadgets, tools and gizmos. Sure, most devices have rechargeable batteries, but there are still a lot of them in your house that need batteries, from smoke detectors, to power tools, to stereos, to toys, and cameras.

If batteries last longer and have more juice, this means that you need to buy less of them and charge them for less time. Sony has been developing improved batteries. These new ones use olivine-type lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material. That's quite a mouthful, but all this means is that the new batteries will last four times as long as the current lithium iron batteries. They will also charge in about 30 minutes. Now that is sweet. These batteries have a life-span of 2,000 charge-discharge cycles. What's even more surprising is that these batteries will keep an 80% charge retention after those 2,000 charge-discharge cycles. Usually, rechargeable batteries will retain less of charge the more they have been used. These batteries are much more efficient, almost as efficient as when they came out of the box.

If you aren't using rechargeable batteries, you should. Battery acid that comes from used up batteries is an environmental hazard and it's best to reduce your use of alkaline batteries. If you are using rechargeable batteries, you're already being greener. Sony's new batteries will last four times as long. This means that you'll use four times less batteries. That's quite a bit. Unfortunately, these new batteries are only available in power tools, but they will surely be available soon for consumer electronics.